I’m sure all of you must have received the updates from Bido about the latest updates that it has undergone. The whole site layout has been changed to make it easier for you to see what domains are in auction. I’ll try and explain what I understand from the updates.

The New Look Bido

The New Look Bido

Voting Credits
Think the most important update is the fact that each account now has 100 voting credits for free. You can buy more – 222 for each Bido credit of $8.88 or 4c each.

You can also add upto 3 (?) votes for every domain you’re voting on. If the domain then gets to auction and gets sold, you get a part of Bido’s commission for the same. While I’m sure this portion of the commission won’t make much sense at the lower price points, on sales of higher value names, it will be much better.

Should be a good way to get the best names into auction. Whether it works or not will have to be seen. I wish they’d extend this ‘affiliate’ system to the banners we put up for them for domains currently in auction.

BidoPrice
This is another important update, the reserve price of a domain is viewable in the voting list (which if you’re looking for is now the BidoPrice tab). Thus the voting will now take two things into consideration – the domain in cojunction with the price.

This actually makes a lot of sense, if a domain is good but the price is unrealistic, it will not sell. More incentive for people listing good domains are great prices I think.

I have one issue with this, its seller-centric. Since bidding is allowed on domains upto 10 days before the domain actually goes into auction, these bids should be revealed too… that would really create the auction excitement then.

BIN & Negotiations
Bido has also introduced Buy It Now pricing and the ability for buyer and seller to negotiate on this BIN price to sell the domain. I’m not sure I like this system at the current price point – why pay $8.88 for EACH domain to list a BIN when you can send it to auction for the same $8.88. Specially when the auction will give you a more accurate representation of the correct market value of this domain.

Other Stuff
There are still some niggling small issues I have with the site, I’ll list them here so hopefully they get included in the next update -

1. The tld search doesn’t work for me, a drop down would be better. When you search for .in, it also lists the .infos, same issue as was there with the previous search box.

2. There is no method to submit domains from within the My Bido, not really that important, but an additional button couldn’t hurt.

3. No support ticket system. No live support. Within a LIVE domain auction system, these are a must, at least imho.

On the whole, the update is a giant step forward in making the system more effective in selling domains, I wish the Bido team the best and hope that their hard work to help me sell more names works out as planned.